USDA Launches Their First Digital Service Fellows Program Advancing The Department’s Technology Workforce

Feb 20, 2024

The United States Department of Agriculture Digital Service (USDA DS) is a program designed to cultivate and grow a community of multidisciplinary teams to create human-centered solutions that deliver simple, seamless, and secure technology and customer experiences across USDA. USDA DS seeks to attract diverse, talented senior technologists, and strategists to further the wide-ranging missions of USDA mission areas, agencies, and staff offices.

As part of this effort, the USDA Digital Service, in partnership with the Office of Customer Experience, is proud to announce the launch of their very first Digital Service Fellows Program in February! Fellows from different walks of life will join one of our highly technical tracks across 1) customer experience strategy, 2) procurement strategy, and 3) digital service delivery.

This new Fellows Program will operate on a tour-of-service model where fellows are appointed for a two-year minimum term on a full-time basis, with the potential option to serve a total of four years. Positions will be located either remotely (anywhere in the U.S.) or in Washington, DC with up to 20% travel expected on an annual basis.

“The Fellows program will allow us to act as firefighters and assign our best people to the hottest problems within USDA,” said Gary Washington, USDA Chief Information Officer. “It will give us the opportunity to have subject matter experts on hand without waiting for the hiring or contracting process, which means we can start right away in solving the challenge and continuing to provide outstanding customer service to those we serve.” He stated.

Selected fellows across digital service delivery and procurement strategy will be hired directly into OCIO Digital Service’s team, while fellows across customer experience strategy will be hired directly into the Office of Customer Experience.

If you know of talented individuals that may be interested in this opportunity, have them visit our public USAJobs.gov post (USAJOBS – Job Announcement) or our Fellows site (Apply To Be a Fellow | USDA).

If you are interested in funding a Fellow to work with you in your Mission Area, reach out to us to learn more!

For more information, visit our website and reference our detailed FAQ sheets. Please direct all questions to USDADigitalService@usda.gov.